Alonso's 80-grade power plays in any environment, but the juiced ball made him especially lethal in his debut season. After breaking camp with the Mets, Alonso immediately justified his top-prospect billing early on, notching 12 extra-base hits and 17 RBI in his first 12 games. His power pace only slowed moderately from there, as the 25-year-old went on to lead MLB with 53 homers, breaking Aaron Judge's two-year-old rookie record. Almost just as encouragingly, Alonso kept his strikeout rate at an acceptable level (26.4%), something that had been a concern as he made the jump from Triple-A. Since he doesn't steal bases, Alonso would probably need to trade more pop flies for line drives to emerge as anything more than a neutral asset in batting average, but the high floor he offers in three categories makes him a comfortable early-round fantasy selection in 2020, and likely, many years to follow. Read Past Outlooks

Alonso and the Mets agreed to a one-year contract worth over $652,000 on Wednesday, an MLB record for a player heading into his second season, Tim Healey of Newsday reports.

ANALYSISPlayers have no bargaining power before they reach their arbitration years, so the club giving Alonso anything more than the league minimum of $563,500 was essentially a show of gratitude for his exploits as a rookie. The 25-year-old hasn't found his timing at the plate yet this spring -- he's hitting only .243 (9-for-37) without a homer -- but Alonso still has a couple weeks to round into form before Opening Day.

This section compares his stats with all batting seasons from the previous three seasons (minimum 400 plate appearances)*. The bar represents the player's percentile rank. For example, if the bar is halfway across, then the player falls into the 50th percentile for that stat and it would be considered average.

* Exit Velocity and Barrels/PA % are benchmarked against 2019 data (min 400 PA) and Hard Hit Rate is benchmarked against last season's data (min 400 PA). See here for more exit velocity/barrels stats plus an explanation of current limitations with that data set.

BB/K

Walk to strikeout ratio

BB Rate

The percentage of plate appearances resulting in a walk.

K Rate

The percentage of plate appearances resulting in a strikeout.

BABIP

Batting average on balls in play. Measures how many of a batter’s balls in play go for hits.

On Base Percentage. A measure of how often a batters reaches base. Roughly equal to number of times on base divided by plate appearances.

SLG

Slugging Percentage. A measure of the batting productivity of a hitter. It is calculated as total bases divided by at bats.

OPS

On base plus slugging. THe sum of a batter's on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

wOBA

Weighted on-base average. Measures a player's overall offensive contributions per plate appearance. wOBA combines all the different aspects of hitting into one metric, weighting each of them in proportion to their actual run value.

Exit Velocity

The speed of the baseball as it comes off the bat, immediately after a batter makes contact.

Hard Hit Rate

A measure of contact quality from Sports Info Solutions. This stat explains what percentage of batted balls were hit hard vs. medium or soft.

Barrels/PA

The percentage of plate appearances where a batter had a batted ball classified as a Barrel. A Barrel is a batted ball with similar exit velocity and launch angle to past ones that led to a minimum .500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage.

Jan Levine looks at under-the-radar players in the National League, including St. Louis' Miles Mikolas, who is benefiting from the delay to the season.

Past Fantasy Outlooks

2019

2018

2017

When factoring in his Arizona Fall League exploits, Alonso hit 42 home runs in 159 games last year, cementing himself as the top slugger in the minors. The 24-year-old first baseman has no problem squaring up elite velocity -- he took a 104-mph fastball out to center field in the Fall Stars game -- but can still be eaten up by good offspeed pitches. While the other top prospects expected to be called up in mid-to-late April, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Eloy Jimenez, project to be positive contributors in batting average and power right away, Alonso’s batting average will likely be closer to .230 than .270 in his first big-league season. That said, he has 80-grade power and should have no trouble posting big home run and RBI totals from day one. It is very rare that a R/R first base prospect emerges as a valuable dynasty-league asset, and the fact that Alonso has done so is a testament to his work ethic, which gets rave reviews.

A fairly easy player to evaluate, Alonso has a couple very clear strengths, and a couple very clear weaknesses. He has huge raw power -- his .231 ISO, which ranked second in the Florida State League, represented his career low in that metric. Alonso is also excellent at making contact, relative to most power hitters. His 18.5 percent strikeout rate at High-A was a career worst, and he struck out just 14.9 percent of the time in a brief 11-game run at Double-A to close the season. However, the right-handed slugger has dramatic splits. He absolutely obliterates left-handed pitching but is pretty mediocre against righties, especially for a first baseman. Additionally, he is a subpar defender, even at first base. The Mets have a better internal option in Dominic Smith, who is basically big-league ready, yet the organization is still entertaining ideas of getting a veteran placeholder there. If they follow through with that, Alonso would be a distant third on the organizational depth chart. He is probably best suited for the short side of a platoon in the American League.

As a right-handed first baseman who has yet to play in a full-season league, Alonso will not be showing up on real life prospect lists anytime soon. However, he should already be on the radar of dynasty league owners. Double-plus raw power is his calling card. That power was always on display at Florida, leading the Mets to select him with the 64th overall pick in 2016. His .266 ISO and 184 wRC+ illustrate how much damage he did in his brief 30-game run in the New York-Penn League, and his .969 OPS would have easily led the league if he had enough plate appearances to qualify. Alonso's hit tool, particularly his ability to hit right-handed pitching, will be what makes or breaks his ability to profile as a cleanup-hitting everyday player. Despite his gaudy overall numbers, he hit just .262/.306/.415 with a 4:15 BB:K in 65 at-bats against righties. Elite power makes him worth a flier in deeper formats, and it should become clear in a year if he is still worth a roster spot.